One of the more interesting issues on the horizon that has implications for workers’ comp is the question of whether “gig economy” workers will have rights as employees. In various posts I’ve been commenting on the Lyft and Uber class actions, since those seem to be t...Read More

The year is half done, so it’s time for my annual mid-year look at California workers’ comp. Here, in no particular order, are the events and themes that seemed to stand out in the first half of 2016, with a bit of commentary:
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Interest in the difference between California workers’ comp as practiced in Northern vs. Southern California continues to build.
This was the topic at the 2016 Workers' Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau's Annual Workers’ Compensation Conference in San Francisco, fra...Read More

Recently I had the pleasure of speaking to a large QME training course, sponsored by the California Orthopedic Association. Joined by WCJ Noah Tempkin and defense attorney William Tappin, the focus of my segment of the training panel, held at Orange County’s Ritz-Carlton Resort at Lagu...Read More

Today's Round Up

03/20/2018 |
39 |
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min read

The North Carolina Department of Insurance has hired 15 new agents to fight a rising tide of insurance fraud.
Mike Causey
The state's General Assembly last year appropriated $2.4 million to hire the agents after fraud arrests jumped to 334 in 2017, a 60% increase from the previous year, state Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey said in news release. Each month, the department receives 400 to 500 fraud complaints, Causey said.
The new agents were trained at the department's anti-fraud academy and include a crime analyst, forensic accountant, attorneys and special agents.
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03/19/2018 |
160 |
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37 min read

Texas could make better use of stop-work orders to crack down on employers who misclassify workers as contractors to avoid paying workers' compensation, a Washington, D.C., think tank said this week.
Andrew Elmore
The Migration Policy Institute, which studies migration worldwide, on Thursday released a study that shows immigrants are twice as likely as native-born workers to be employed in industries in which labor violations are widespread.
Misclassifying workers as independent contractors is common in low-wage businesses, the report said.
Some states, including Texas, are not ...
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